How our lives changed after becoming CFA candidates
Social Activities: 3 missed bachelor parties, 2 best friends’ weddings, and countless social outings missed as a result of being a CFA candidate. You will find yourself at conflict several times due to differing priorities. Juggling time between your partner, friends, and family members will become more challenging as you approach the exam date. It will become crucial for you to avoid appeasing everyone and some tough choices will have to be made along the way.
Extracurricular Activities: A guilty conscience will start to play a vital role in your candidacy, as we found ourselves sometimes questioning our life decisions. During soccer games and golf sessions, we would wonder whether we should have stayed at home instead to study some more. The ideal approach here would be to follow a disciplined schedule to ensure that you are able to balance studying and extracurricular activities. You will feel guilty at times for not studying enough, but that is only natural and is experienced by almost every candidate. It is important to unwind and take breaks from the material to recharge and come back stronger.
Vacation Time: Prior to the exam session, we would set aside as much vacation time as we could for the 2 to 3 weeks before the exam. You would want to have this discussion sooner rather than later with your manager to avoid any conflict with other team members who might be booking the same time slots. This ensures you have enough time to complete a thorough review of the material and also provides ample time to complete mock exams.
Unexpected Events: No matter how well you prepare a schedule for yourself to study, something unexpected always tends to pop up out of the blue, which we felt we had no control over. An example of this would be when unexpected work commitments come up and require you to stay later than usual without any prior notice. The key in these situations is to be flexible and have a contingency plan in place to get around these problems. Suggestions include reducing time spent on extracurricular or social activities to compensate. It is also important not to get discouraged and to stay motivated towards achieving your goal as a candidate, as this is all part of the process.